An Object Of Beauty
by richiegrimes
Summary: Rick is an international businessman. Michonne is an aspiring art curator in New York City. They fall in love over a number of months. (Against their better judgement.)


_14th April_

It's April, and the rain that seems to have been falling on New York City for days and days has finally stopped. Tonight, everything in the city seems to be a little more vibrant.

Even at this upscale bar somewhere in downtown Manhattan, where Rick is sat, tapping his fingers against his glass, watching a woman blink her blue eyes at him coyly.

It's not common that Rick has downtime like this, with his life being a blurry mess of conference calls and contracts and meetings. And it's not at all often that he has downtime in New York _fucking_ City of all places. He'd very much like to take advantage of it.

"Rick, hey," Jesus calls over the loud music, falling into the seat next to him, spilling a little of the drink in his glass onto his suit (and a little onto Rick's) and obstructs his view of the woman who looked like she was finally ready get up and make a move. "How'd you like the show tonight, man?" Rick shakes his head a bit once he realizes Jesus is beyond drunk, slurring over his words.

They're here tonight, celebrating the success of Daryl's first photography exhibition at a well-known art gallery. There wasn't a medium of art that Rick thinks Daryl couldn't master. He'd started with painting, which is how he and Jesus had met, years ago when Daryl had his work displayed in a small fine art auction house that Jesus had been working for at the time.

"It was amazing, Jesus, I had no idea Daryl was so talented." Rick says half-heartedly, craning his neck, trying to find where the woman had gone, her seat now empty in just the few moments that she was out of his sight. "You must be so proud of him, really."

This sets Jesus off. "God, just so proud, you know," he breathes, leaning onto Rick's shoulder. "I always told him that he could do anything he put his mind to. I love him so much, I don't know how I found such a wonderful man in such a big place, you know? Must have been fate or somethin'."

Rick nods, though he can't relate. He'd given up on trying to find somebody years ago, focusing on his work instead. He's had flings every now and again. More than a couple of one-offs that really didn't mean much to him with women that didn't really mean all that much to him either. Detaching himself was easy when he didn't stay in one place for very long.

As if Jesus could read his mind he looks into Ricks eyes. They're distant but he can tell by the wrinkle between his eyebrows that he's trying his best to pull himself out of the haze and focus on Rick's face. "You'll find somebody that's good for you, just like he's good for me. I know it. And I know you've got this weird thing against love or whatever, but I know you will."

It's a good-natured gesture, Jesus makes, but it's one that fills Rick with a bit of dejection, one that a clearer minded Jesus would have known better not to have made. Rick knows he just wants the best for his friend, but he doesn't need a reminder of how fucking lonely his life is.

"Paul," Daryl cuts in, appearing from out of the crowd of people and wraps an arm around Jesus' shoulder. They've been together so long, it's like Daryl knows when Jesus is getting into trouble and where he is when he's doing it. "Been lookin' for ya." And Jesus practically jumps into his boyfriend's arms, kissing him sloppily, sloshing the drink that's still in his hand all over the place.

"Christ. He's worse than I thought. I knew I shoulda been watching him," Daryl groans, once Jesus has torn himself away from his lips and stumbles back into the crowd after he spots one of his friends. "He can't hold his alcohol for shit."

"Never could, could he?"

"Saw him talkin' yer ear off over here," Daryl says. His tie is loose around his neck; he undoubtedly did that the moment he was finished taking pictures back at the art gallery. "Figured he was probably goin' off about how you didn't bring a date tonight, or somethin'."

"Something like that. You know Jesus. He always tries his best to help. Even when I'd rather him not."

"He just wants you to be happy. Worries when you ain't around for a while."

Rick takes a deep breath along with another long sip of his drink. "Yeah."

"Ah, fuck," he mutters when he sees Jesus fall to the floor, what's left of his drink still in hand, giggling just as loudly as ever. "I gotta get him home. Thanks for takin' the time out man. Catch ya when yer back in the city, Rick."

Rick says goodbye to his friends and sees them off, turning back towards the bar and staring into his drink once again. For a second, he loathes them, jealous of when they have together. It'd sure be nice, he thinks, the stability. Being able to have someone to wake up to each morning. The strong possibility of a family one day. But the reality of the matter is, it wouldn't work. Nobody in their right mind would agree to date someone with Rick's lifestyle and he wouldn't want them to.

Right now, though, Rick can only focus on how embarrassingly long it's been since he's gotten laid and finding a beautiful woman and taking her home, and forgetting about his stressful work life, if only for a little while, becomes his priority. He scans the room for blue eyes until he finds her, chatting quietly in the corner with another man.

Somewhere, someone calls out loudly and it draws Rick's attention away, towards the door. It's just a group of friends reuniting, and they continue to chatter as they walk away, but Rick has his eyes glued to the doorway, watching a woman so stunning walk in that his heartbeat rises just a little bit.

There's something mesmerizing about her and the way that her wide eyes scan the room, looking for the bar and when she finds it, she takes the seat next to Rick.

"Excuse me," she speaks softly, once she sits down, summoning the bartender with a single one of her fingers in the air. "Double vodka, neat please."

Everything about her seems like a dream, from the way her skin seems to shine despite the dim light, to the way her hair is artfully piled on top of her head, a single one of her soft dreads falling into her face. She gives Rick this aura of an almost dangerous, animalistic confidence, yet she's as unassuming and doe-eyed as a deer.

The bartender sets her drink in front of her and she thanks him before tipping the glass and finishing most of the drink in one go.

A burning interest gets the better of him and so he just has so ask, "Rough day?"

She turns her head to give Rick a small smile and bites at her lip absentmindedly. "Not particularly. Rough week, more like it." The woman cuts her eyes at him almost blushingly, but somehow he knows it isn't shyness he's seeing in those eyes and Rick gets a dangerous sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"I've just never seen a woman throw back a double vodka back like that."

"Maybe you've just never met a woman like me." Rick is sure he hasn't.

"Please tell me you're not one of those guys who just sit in bars all night until a looker happens to walk in?"

"Worked for me tonight, yeah?"

She arches an eyebrow. "Is that what you say to all the women you meet in bars?" her voice is deep, but smooth, and it glides, not unlike the way her silk dress slinks across her skin.

"Just the ones I think are exceptionally beautiful."

She tosses her head back in a laugh and Rick hearing it makes him smile. He wants to make her laugh again and again and again. "God, you're charming. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Thank you, I pride myself on it."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"I do."

"Humble too, I see." She mumbles around the edge of her glass. She finishes her drink and sets it back onto the bar.

Rick signals the bartender to bring them another drink. "Mine and hers. On my tab, please." He's already feeling a little fuzzy from his cocktails earlier in the night, his thoughts and words starting to go a little soft around the edges, but there's something about this girl that makes him feel like he needs to keep the alcohol flowing through his system.

"How much longer do you have in New York?"

"Excuse me?"

Rick's heart rate rises a bit more when she rests her hand on his knee and leans in close. "I don't know if you know it, but you stick out here like a sore thumb," she whispers, matter-of-factly and he's taken aback.

As close as they are, Rick's eyes flick down to where her teeth bite down into full bottom lips and flick back to her warm brown eyes.

The bartender sets their drinks in front of them, clearing his throat.

"So," she exhales and reaches for her drink, "how much longer, you got?"

Rick blinks at her for a beat, "Just until tomorrow evening."

"And where are you after that?"

"Plan on joining me, darling?"

"A girl's just curious."

"Out of the country. Dubai, I believe. It's gotten to be quite a blur for me these last few months." And it's the truth. Rick sometimes doesn't know where his job will take him until he receives his briefing in the car to the airport.

"Dubai, what a beautiful place." The woman breathes deeply and lets her eyes slip closed, as if she's imaging the beautiful white sand beaches and the breathtaking skylines. But then, her smile fades and her eyes open, her fantasy seems to have been cut short. "If you've only got one night left in New York, why are you spending it here, alone?"

"I'm not alone. Don't tell anyone but, I happen to be sitting with the most beautiful woman in New York City."

Amusement blooms across her face, though she tries to mask it by rolling her eyes. The overpowering smile on her face that she can't seem to hide shows otherwise. "Humble. Charming. Funny. You're really giving it your all tonight, aren't you?"

Rick asks, "Why don't you dance with me?"

"Is this a thinly veiled excuse to get your hands on me?" Her full-blown smile fades to a wicked smirk and she gasps in mocks offense, though she stands up from her seat and he follows suit.

"I'd never," Rick feigns innocence right back at her, throwing his hands in the air to show her just how appalling the prospect of wrapping his hands around her tiny waist and up and down the back of her thighs really is to him in that moment. "Just a dance between new friends to have a little fun."

"You've been looking like you've been wanting to have a little fun with me since I walked in."

"You're a modest one, but you're quite a bit naughty, I can tell." Ricks heartbeat now rivals the tempo of the upbeat song that blares from the speakers.

"I could say the same about you," he says, but he doesn't know if she can hear him as he follows her into the crowd.

"Oh god, Rick—," he hears her gasp and it sounds like she's overcome with it, her breaths coming quick and high-pitched, wound tight, barely teetering on the edge of keeping it together. She keeps one of her hands wrapped tightly around the rail of the headboard and the other hand threaded through Rick's dark curls, pushing his tongue further inside of her, further under the silky fabric of her dress, now bunched up around her thighs.

He's decided that he's tortured her for long enough and lays the flat of his tongue against her and licks upwards, reveling in the noises that burst from her, as if she's unable to stop them from bubbling from her throat. "'S good?" he murmurs and she replies with a particularly sweet moan. He licks and sucks at her clit until he feels her legs start to shake where they're perched up on his shoulders.

He doesn't miss how the sharp yanks on his hair come a little harder now and through the dull ache of pain he feels that arousal spark up his spine and his cock grows almost impossibly harder. He lets one of her legs go to reach underneath his body and unzips his pants, sighing when he feels a little relief.

"Michonne," he groans against her lips. He's in love with the way her name sounds rolling around in his mouth, so he moans it again, "Mmm, Michonne, you're so wet for me darling."

 _"Michonne LaMontange,"_ she'd told him in between kisses the cab, and it had turned him on even more than anything to hear those words fall from her lips. It seemed fitting, such a magnificent creature to have such a name.

Hot little moans keep spilling from her mouth as Rick keeps up the pace, licking and sucking at her clit. He sinks a finger inside of her and pistons it in and out of her until she's almost screaming where she lays, her head rocking forth and back. "Fuck, oh my, _fuck_ —," she's pitching higher and higher until her spine arches and she clenches tight around his finger and her mouth opens around a scream that sticks silently in her throat.

Rick runs his hands up and down her trembling legs, one still propped up around his neck, the other rimrod straight, laid out on the bed, her toes flexing. He wipes his hand across his mouth and tries to loosen his tie so that he can breathe, and when he looks up at her again, he sees her watching him with a glint in her eyes and she reaches an arm out to him.

Her dress straps are still pushed off her shoulders, her chest still exposed and gleaming from where Rick's tongue laved over the expanse of her chest when they had first fallen onto the bed. He crawls up to meet her lips and she kisses him slowly, and catches her breath and he continues to rub any part of her body that he can get his hands on.

"You're okay?"

"More than. Better than, even," she breathes and he feels his eyes roll back a bit when he feels the pressure of her hand rub against him through his briefs. "You okay?"

He barely hears her over the sound of blood rushing in his ears. "You're wearing way too many clothes right now,"

"Likewise," she continues to rub against him, faster and faster now, puts her hand through the slit in his briefs and strokes his length, angling her mouth against his for another kiss. His face twists and he feels a lot closer to the edge than he thought.

"You're making me so fucking hot," Pleasure prickles throughout his limbs and Rick moans against her mouth helplessly, unable to hide it. "God, you're so fucking—,"

"Mmm, what?" Michonne pushes him away from her body and perches herself on her knees so they face each other on the bed. Her dress slips over her head and lands somewhere on the floor near Rick's opened suitcases. Rick all but rips his shirt from his body (and he would have, had it not been this year's Armani) and tosses it, his tie being the last to go. The silk is cool in his hands and he has visions of tying it around her wrists before he chucks in the direction of the rest of their clothes.

"Say it, Rick," she goes on, and pushes his underwear down, letting his cock slap wetly against his navel.

 _"_ Goddamned dangerous _._ " He tells her, watching her with hooded eyes at her licking her lips at the way his dick bobs to the left, flushed dark pink at the head.

"Yeah," Michonne says with a shudder, her voice hoarse. She runs her hands over his bare chest, his collarbones, over the dark lines of ink of the tattoo on his side, "am I?"

"Shit, baby, you know you are," a thin layer of sweat covers Rick's body as his lungs heave and she looks up at him from underneath thick lashes, her big brown eyes blown dark. "Touch me."

She does, wrapping her small hand around his cock and stroking it slowly from the base easily, as it's gotten so slick already. "Yes," grunts Rick roughly, latches his mouth to her throat and his hands to her, chest pinching and rolling her nipples in his hands. His breath comes faster, hot against her neck and he nips at the soft skin there.

She pushes him down suddenly, and he feels his back hit the soft duvet on the bed and she settles his body in between her thighs. Rick grips himself in his hands and guides it where she's dripping for him, letting her swivel her hips and grind against it for a moment, whimpering when it brushes against sensitive, swollen skin and she fist his hair firmly in her hand again.

Rick uses his free hand to wrap around her waist to guide her down onto him but she angles her body away sharply. "Rick," she sings softly in his ear and he breathes out a reply, keeping his hand moving in a steady motion. "do you have any condoms here?"

Rick freezes. " _Shit_ ," he sneers, mentally kicking himself, and he's so fucking hard right now, if she made him stop, he would probably cry. They'd moved so fast, from the bar to the cab to the hotel that he didn't get a chance to even think about it. "no, god, I didn't get a chance to…"

"That's too bad," she whines, "was gonna let you fuck me," she lets her tongue lick a stripe through the sweat from his flexing navel, up his chest, over his adam's apple and to the shell of his ear.

"All night, any way you wanted," Rick can't take it anymore when he feels her worry over a particularly sensitive spot on his neck with her teeth and he feels his orgasm shoot up and down his spine and he comes all over his hand, huffing out stunted little pants until his breathing settles out. He has just enough sense left to wipe his hand across the duvet before he allows his brain to short out.

Below them somewhere, the city springs back to life and the honking of the traffic outside seems to phase back in. The lights stream in from the open window and illuminate Michonne's face, her eyes are closed and she's breathing peacefully when her head's set, laid out on Rick's chest.

It's a while before he feels her move. She idly drags her foot against his leg and runs her hand through his sex-crazed curls. Rick allows himself to indulge in the satisfying feeling of her blunt nails scratching lightly against his scalp, thumbing across her back and humming his appreciation.

"You're something else, Mr. Grimes," she breathes softly.

"I do aim to please, as best I can."

When she starts to stir out of his arms and pad off into the bathroom, he'd be lying if he said he didn't fix his lips into a pout, feeling a tinge of disappointment settle into his stomach. "Off so soon?" he calls as she stares up at the ceiling, where she's left him lying.

"How sweet of you, inviting me to stay the night. I'm not used to that," her voice bounces off of the walls, and he hears the water from the sink start to flow. "It's probably because you're not like the men from the city. Where are you from?"

"Atlanta."

"Oooh, Atlanta," she croons and the water stops. "A country boy businessman. A rarity, I'm sure." Michonne pokes her head out of past the door frame, her hair now piled neatly on top of her head again. He feels a little breathless as he watches her walk to him, shameless in her nakedness, her breasts swaying with each step. "You sure don't dance like you're from the country, though." She grins as if remembering how they their bodies moved together, only a few hours ago.

"I'm not going to think about whether that's a compliment or not, I'm just going to take it," he laughs and gives her his best southern twang, though it's lost its authenticity years and years ago, "Haven't been to the country for a long time, ma'am,"

Michonne drops onto the edge of the bed, and he watches her breasts bounce softly, and he makes it up in his mind that he's only slightly obsessed. "Mmm, call me that again, please."

"Ma'am?" he leans forward to mouth and bite at one of her soft, dark nipples. "Does it get you hot?"

"Just a little." She giggles, unable to keep a straight face and swats at Rick's head.

He unattaches himself. "Duly noted."

They let the air settle a little between them. "I don't really do this often," Michonne stammers, rolls her eyes a little, "I mean, when I said, I wasn't used to guys asking me to stay, I don't want you to think that—."

"I don't. I don't think that. I completely understand the need to go home with somebody every now and them. It's a fuck lot easier than going it the long way. Y'know, the whole dating song and dance. Waiting day and night to hear your phone ring. The awkwardness of dinner and dates and…yeah. I tried it when I was younger. That's just not my life anymore." Rick asserts, and it sounds like he's trying to convince himself of this more than anything. Michonne nods, but she doesn't comment. "Even if I had the time, I don't think I'd have the patience to fall in love."

"You know what I think about that, Rick?"

"Hmm?" he rumbles in his chest as he watches her crawl on her hands and knees to where he's moved, propped up against the headboard.

"Fuck it, Rick. Fuck falling in love, who needs it? People can have this, like what we had tonight," she sucks his bottom lip gently before he pulls her closer to him and kisses her proper, rubbing his hands on her ass, still held high in the air. "And they can have it without anything to mess it up," she breaks the kiss and slides off the bed, searching the floor. "and if they choose to fall in love and it works, hey, good on them."

Rick lays with his arms propped behind his head, watching Michonne slip her dress over her head. "You really can stay the night. I don't have anything planned until noon."

"Some of us have to work in the morning." She steps into one of her high heels. "Can't all laze around Dubai whenever we want, unfortunately." Then into the other.

"Let me call you a cab, then."

She leans over the bed and presses a kiss onto Rick's forehead. "You really are a proper southern gentleman, aren't you?"

Rick huffs out a breath and leans his head back deeper into the pillows, noticing how her lacy pink underwear hang from a corner of the headboard.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Rick raises an eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He dangles the fabric from a single finger.

She smirks as she closes the door behind her. "Give them back to me the next time you're in New York."


End file.
